


i don't know much about your life beyond these walls

by mathonwys



Series: i'm looking at you through the glass [3]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Discussion of Tekkit and Blackrock, F/M, Flux Buddies, Hurt/Comfort, Mostly hurt, Voltz, Yoglabs, horrible mess of a timeline, keeping secrets, tekkit/blackrock is not a fun topic for lalna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 20:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4114060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathonwys/pseuds/mathonwys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a fleeting sense of love within these god-forsaken halls</p><p>Lalna wants to know where Nano came from before they met. Nano would rather not talk about it. Lalna can't judge; he has secrets of his own, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i don't know much about your life beyond these walls

It was the elephant in the room.

They both knew it had to come up, though, even as she deftly skirted around the topic like she was navigating a minefield. Both of them were hiding secrets, of course, but a non-stop worry lingered in the back of Lalna's mind as she continued to shy away from his questions. Could they really be partners like this? Sure, he hadn't told her much about himself either (and the discussion of clones and lack thereof had quickly left his memory), so maybe he couldn't quite complain, but...

"Hey, Nano!" Lalna looked up from where he was quite literally tangled up in his work as he called out to her. A loud groan signaled her arrival; Nano climbed down and started disconnecting cables from their sockets, complaining all the while. Tiddles meowed in concern and weaved between her legs as she bemoaned Lalna's complete ignorance. She didn't even notice when he started tuning her out.  
  
"There you go, you big pillock." Nano thumped him hard on the back. "Need anything else while I'm here, or can I go back to fixing the chaos you left upstairs?"  
  
"Actually, I had a question." Lalna braced himself on one of the nearby machines and pulled himself to his feet. He gave the tangle of cabling a kick for good measure. "You know... About where you came from." As soon as he said it, he could see her eyes darken. "Wait." The scientist grabbed his buddy's arm before she could pull away from him; Nano tugged at his grip, but beyond a muttered "let me go" didn't continue to struggle. "It can be like a slumber party, we can trade secrets!"  
  
"What, is this just another attempt to get me naked?" She teased. "Seriously, _**let go**_. I have things to do."  
  
"Nano!" She felt strong hands grab her by the shoulders and spin her around. Startled, she couldn't do anything but crane her head up to look Lalna in the face. " _ **I mean it**_ , this could be important. Where'd you come from?"  
  
"The **_sky_** ," Nano snapped. "Sips and Sjin blew me up, remember?"  
  
"Before that."   
  
"Sjin's farm. I had a shitty house and everything."  
  
"Before _**that**_."  
  
"I don't know, the Nether! Strawfingers captured me and was feeding me chicken. I like chicken."  
  
" _ **Before that!**_ "  
  
" _ **I don't know**_!" Nano exploded. "I don't _**know**_ , okay?! Happy now?! I don't **_know_** , the first thing I remember is waking up in the bloody Nether wondering where the _**hell**_ I was and why everything was on _**fire**_!" She shoved Lalna, hard, and the taller of the duo stumbled back in shock. "I don't... I don't _**know**_." She gripped her arm tight with one hand. Nano didn't even seem to notice as her fingernails dug into it and made the Flux spiral in dizzying patterns. "I figured it was the Flux, y'know, all my memories get out of order... But I can remember Sjin just fine, and the Nether, and your castle, and New Camelot, and all that, but..."  
  
She let her arm drop back to her side and lifted the other up to examine the marks she'd left. Nano's eyes glazed over as she became lost in the twisting spirals of the Flux. "No... That's not _**entirely**_ true. I remember something _**else**_ , before the Nether. I remember a sky. I remember a night sky so thick that you could touch it. No stars, but I remember the moon." Nano lowered her arm and looked up at Lalna. "That's it."  
  
She had gotten used to his bear-hugs by now, but she hadn't expected him to lift her feet off the ground. Nano yelped and pounded her fists against his chest until he set her back down with a quiet apology. Lalna looked sheepish as he pulled away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."  
  
"Yeah, well." Nano looked about ready to say something awful, but something made her reconsider. Instead she dropped into a heap on the floor and looked up at the patterns the torchlight made on the ceiling. "I don't try to think about it." A thump next to her startled her, but she settled back down as soon as she realized it was her buddy joining her on the floor. "What about you? Where'd _**you**_ come from?"  
  
"I was a scientist," Lalna started off. "Well, I still _**am**_ , but I was getting paid and everything. In radiation, mostly, but not everything's perfect! Ever heard of Voltz?" Nano shook her head. "Oh, okay. It was the uh, precursor to Yoglabs in a way: a bunch of brilliant minds (and one dwarf) gathered together to blow things up in the name of science. Or just to blow things up."  
  
He rolled his shoulders and settled into his spot with his hands tucked behind his head. "Then we moved to Baked Bean Fort-- you know, that big ol' can we raided? We was trying to go to the moon, it uh..." Lalna laughed. "It... wasn't the _**smoothest**_ journey; ours in New Camelot went a lot better." He gave Nano a  gentle punch in the side and cracked a grin as she complained. "All thanks to my apprentice, of course! And then uh... When that was all over with, Xephos founded Yoglabs, and I was the head of R &D until... _**something**_." His expression clouded over.

>   
>  |...| _"...They stopped cloning me," he said after what felt like forever. Nano's eyes widened and she stepped back._ What? _"Yoglabs. It's-- It's standard procedure, all Yoglabs employees have their genome sequenced and a master clone created. I worked there before they had CloneSec set up. I was the test subject for the cloning process; I'd created it in the first place, and no one else was willing to try."_ |...|

  
"And then what?" Nano studied his features with a slight frown on her own. "You keep mentioning Tekkit, but that's been gone for like... _**years**_ now."  
  
" _ **I don't really want to talk about that right now**_." His tone of voice shut down any protests she could've made. Etched on his face was an emotion she rarely saw on him: regret. "Come on then," Lalna said out of the blue as he got to his feet and shooed Tiddles away from the discarded cabling. "We need to hook all this up if we want the computer to start getting power again."  
  
"Yes master," Nano said with clear sarcasm and an eye-roll. "Whatever you say, master. I'm gonna go see if my Witchery's done brewing."  
  
Lalna turned his back to her as she climbed up the ladder. The easy, repetitive process of linking everything back together allowed him to clear his mind and stop focusing on what he'd done and the mistakes he'd made. His scars itched with pain, but something down deeper was aching too.  
  
"I think you'd like her," he said to thin air. Tiddles meowed. "Not you," Lalna corrected automatically. "Heavens no." He slumped over on the computer console and tugged his left glove off to look at the network of scars lacing his skin. Talking about the Voltz project had brought back memories: the flash of a detonating nuke, the anguished scream, and the distant glimpse of a castle that wasn't his being completely vaporized.  
  
"Fuck," he moaned pathetically. He couldn't possibly tell her. No, it was better off that she didn't know. Nano had no idea that her off-handed jokes (" _you say you cleaned it up, but it looks to me like you dropped a **bomb** on it_ ") was digging at him worse than her other barbs did.  
  
When Lalna finally went to sleep, it was to dream of mathematical equations, the eerie blue light of Cherenkov radiation, and a red-haired girl with Nano's face.


End file.
